Principal Software Engineer

At F5, we strive to bring a better digital world to life. Our teams empower organizations across the globe to create, secure, and run applications that enhance how we experience our evolving digital world. We are passionate about cybersecurity, from protecting consumers from fraud to enabling companies to focus on innovation. 
 

Everything we do centers around people. That means we obsess over how to make the lives of our customers, and their customers, better. And it means we prioritize a diverse F5 community where each individual can thrive.

At F5, we are building a Cloud Native solutions to support large-scale, high-performance, and highly available services across multi-cloud environments. The Data Plane Team at F5 is seeking an experienced Principal Engineer with deep technical knowledge of Routing technologies, networking fundamentals, and distributed systems. You will work on the development and lifecycle of a multi-cloud distributed platform, leveraging Kubernetes (K8s) for orchestration.
The ideal candidate will have deep technical expertise in BGP, MP-BGP, MPLS, networking fundamentals, and distributed systems, with Kubernetes orchestration. You will be responsible for designing and implementing scalable and resilient control and data plane solutions while bringing leadership experience and technical acumen to influence the future direction of our product.

Key Responsibilities
 

• Lead data path development for the CNE product line, focusing on scalability and high availability in distributed cloud environments.
• Design and implement scalable, high-performance solutions for Data plane.
• Technically lead major system components in distributed systems, from design to implementation.
• Create and maintain functional specifications and design documents to clearly communicate design decisions and solutions.
• Proactively identify and resolve key technical challenges related to performance, security, and scalability.
• Continuously improve the performance and reliability of the platform, ensuring it meets operational demands.
• Investigate and propose solutions to security vulnerabilities within the platform, including third-party integrations.
• Mentor junior engineers and serve as a source of technical expertise across the team.
• Communicate effectively with internal stakeholders, presenting complex technical concepts to both technical and non-technical audiences.
   

Qualifications
 

• 14+ years of software engineering experience, with 10+ years in designing and implementing large-scale distributed systems.
• Prior experience in cloud technologies, particularly AWS, Kubernetes (K8s), and distributed, scalable systems and their deployment models, with a focus on scalability, performance, and security.
• Deep expertise in BGP, MPLS, EVPN  and IPSec routing, as well as networking fundamentals (TCP, UDP, L4-L7, HTTP, BGP, MPLS, EVPN).
• Experience with cloud networking platforms and commercial BGP routing solutions.
• Strong coding proficiency in C/C++/Golang, with a proven track record of leading complex software development efforts.
• Hands-on experience with Docker, K8s, and microservices architecture in cloud environments.
• Strong architectural skills in designing highly available, real-time systems in distributed environments.
• Excellent communication, collaboration, and leadership skills, with the ability to lead and mentor teams effectively.

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The Job Description is intended to be a general representation of the responsibilities and requirements of the job. However, the description may not be all-inclusive, and responsibilities and requirements are subject to change.

F5 maintains broad salary ranges for its roles in order to account for variations in knowledge, skills, experience, geographic locations, and market conditions, as well as to reflect F5’s differing products, industries, and lines of business. The pay range referenced is as of the time of the job posting and is subject to change.

You may also be offered incentive compensation, bonus, restricted stock units, and benefits. More details about F5’s benefits can be found at the following link: https://www.f5.com/company/careers/benefits. F5 reserves the right to change or terminate any benefit plan without notice. 

Please note that F5 only contacts candidates through F5 email address (ending with @f5.com) or auto email notification from Workday (ending with f5.com or @myworkday.com).

Equal Employment Opportunity

It is the policy of F5 to provide equal employment opportunities to all employees and employment applicants without regard to unlawful considerations of race, religion, color, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, sensory, physical, or mental disability, marital status, veteran or military status, genetic information, or any other classification protected by applicable local, state, or federal laws. This policy applies to all aspects of employment, including, but not limited to, hiring, job assignment, compensation, promotion, benefits, training, discipline, and termination.  F5 offers a variety of reasonable accommodations for candidates. Requesting an accommodation is completely voluntary. F5 will assess the need for accommodations in the application process separately from those that may be needed to perform the job. Request by contacting [email protected].